Le cavalier à l’orée du bois, um 1874/75

CommentaryLike in the painting ›La Fête de Bacchus‹, Corot also used the motif of backlighting in this painting to give the landscape with forest clearing a more profound depth. Under the group of tress, a horse and rider are following a path which leads to the lake visible in the distance. The animal and man appear miniscule in comparison with the mighty trees whose crowns soar high in the heavens and take up nearly half the canvas. The landscape, painted in dark colors, provides a poetic mood: it allows the viewer a contemplative calmness and at the same time creates a feeling of melancholy. The delicate and sometimes blurred paint application is typical of Corot’s late style. Retrospectively in this painting, artistic influences present in his oeuvre are recognizable here: The tree limiting the composition on the left side recalls Poussin, the atmospheric lightness Claude Lorrain and Corot could have taken the elegance of the sfumato technique from Rembrandt or perhaps from Leonardo da Vinci. With his special ability to depict atmosphere and light, he is a master in the tradition of classic French landscape art.

Like in the painting ›La Fête de Bacchus‹, Corot also used the motif of backlighting in this painting to give the landscape with forest clearing a more profound depth. Under the group of tress, a horse and rider are following a path which leads to the lake visible in the distance. The animal and man appear miniscule in comparison with the mighty trees whose crowns soar high in the heavens and take up nearly half the canvas. The landscape, painted in dark colors, provides a poetic mood: it allows the viewer a contemplative calmness and at the same time creates a feeling of melancholy. The delicate and sometimes blurred paint application is typical of Corot’s late style. Retrospectively in this painting, artistic influences present in his oeuvre are recognizable here: The tree limiting the composition on the left side recalls Poussin, the atmospheric lightness Claude Lorrain and Corot could have taken the elegance of the sfumato technique from Rembrandt or perhaps from Leonardo da Vinci. With his special ability to depict atmosphere and light, he is a master in the tradition of classic French landscape art.